This invention concerns gloves, and more particularly relates to a system for packaging and dispensing sterile surgical gloves.
Surgical gloves, because of their resilient, form-fitting nature, are not easily emplaced upon the hand without assistance from others. When packaging sterilized pairs of gloves intended for use in medical or dental procedures, several factors must be taken into account. Firstly, the package should be of a nature such as to prevent contamination of the gloves during storage and handling. Secondly, the gloves should be disposed in a manner facilitating their removal from the package without difficulty and placed upon the hands of the surgeon or the like without contamination. Thirdly, the package should be amenab1e to automated production to achieve acceptably low costs.
Packaging methods for sterile surgical gloves have been earlier disclosed, such as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,372,799; 4,099,614; and 4,155,494. Packaging techniques for inexpensive gloves formed by the heat bonding of two layers of polyethylene have been disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,870,150; 4,034,853; and 4,677,697, said techniques generally involving the disposition of a multitude of the gloves sequentially in a roll configuration.
The aforesaid earlier techniques for packaging surgical sterile gloves leave much to be desired in terms of the ease with which the gloves are properly deployed from their packaged state, and the cost of such techniques. The known methods for packaging polyethylene gloves, although providing minimal cost, are not conducive to the packaging of sterile latex-type surgical gloves because of the difficulty in deploying the gloves from the package under sterile conditions.
It is accordingly a primary object of the present invention to provide a package of sterile surgical gloves.
It is another object of this invention to provide a package of sterile surgical gloves from which said gloves are readily dispensed under sterile conditions.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a package of the aforesaid nature resistant to contamination during storage and handling, and amenable to low cost manufacture.
These objects and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description.